User blog:Fedora Lord Para 348/What is "Spite"?
Okay, so with the massive influx of blogs dedicated to defending the existence of stomp fights, I decided I should have a crack at this. If you've spent any time here on the wiki, you have seen a fight which is so blatantly one-sided and there is zero debate on who would win. Naturally, a lot of people instantly go for the classic "X stomps easy" or sometimes, it gets more vulgar than that. But it's actually extremely common for Death Battles to be one-sided to a degree. Hell, the show itself isn't safe from this in the slightest. In fact, it dates back to its first episode - Samus vs. Boba Fett. On one hand, you've got a bounty hunter who can move at around 100 miles per hour on his jetpack and should be around building-level in power and durability... and then you've got one who can freeze a star and run on a beam of light. In fact, lots of battles were complete stomps. Thor vs. Raiden, Batman vs. Spider-Man, Godzilla vs. Gamera, Ragna vs. Sol Badguy, Darth Vader vs. Doctor Doom... yet, all those fights were awesome to watch and were definitely entertaining, even if the outcomes were pretty clear-cut. (Yes, I know that Luke Skywalker vs. Harry Potter and Kratos vs. Spawn were one-sided too, but to be honest those really weren't the best fights as far as quality goes) But here, for whatever reason people seem to have this idea that a one-sided fight can't be made entertaining. However, my good friend Nkstjoa would like to challenge you on that with Ghost Rider vs. Scorpion - did anyone go in thinking Scorpion would win? But at the same time, did anyone go out thinking that the fight was bland for that reason? As a matter of fact, somewhere around half of my Season 6 consists of pretty one-sided battles. And you know what? I don't really care. I just know I'm going to have a blast writing them. Alright, so we get the idea. However, there's one thing I need to address. It's one of the rules in the Hall of Records, and it's something that people are always so quick to point out - spite. What is spite? By definition, spite is a desire to hurt, annoy, or offend someone. In this case, some battles are written as spite toward a character, or in extreme cases, someone who likes that character (yes, this has happened before here). Now, one-sided battles, or battles that have the results skewed in another character's favor unfairly, can qualify as spite. But more often than not, a writer's opinion's on a character aren't enough to call a battle spite. Very similar to an idea known as Poe's Law, on the internet, it can be difficult to distinguish clear and sincere spite from a simply one-sided battle. However, that doesn't mean that having a character one dislikes lose is instantly spite. For example, take my Mothra vs. EVA-02 battle. I'm going to be honest - I hate Asuka Langley Sohryu. I think she's a very poorly-written character among a comparatively more interesting cast. I also happen to really like Mothra. In the end, it turned out that the battle wasn't even fair - Mothra just seemed to have all the advantages. The battle wasn't done out of a desire to kill Asuka. It was done as a follow-up to one of my most well-received battles, Godzilla vs. Evangelion Unit-01. Spite isn't simply a one-sided or poorly-researched battle. It's a battle done with the intention of hurting a character or user. Not examples of spite Vash the Stampede vs. Spike Spiegel. As much as I hate this battle idea, and how royally screwed Spike is, it's a legit battle idea. There's a legendary rivalry between Trigun and Cowboy Bebop, and the two are both expert marksmen in anime heavily inspired by Western films. Bane vs Juggernaut. Another fight idea I can't stand, but it's another Marvel vs. DC fight, with both characters being huge, muscular bruiser characters with villainous reputations and receiving powers from an outside source, even though there is no way Bane could ever hope to pull a win. Samus Aran vs. Master Chief. One-sided for basically the same reasons as Samus vs. Boba Fett, but this is fiercely requested because both characters are from shooter games with cosmic and alien elements to them, they have similar armors, it's Nintendo vs. Microsoft, and they both won their Death Battles. Doesn't change the fact that Master Chief would hardly fare better than Boba Fett did, but there's no direct spite involved. As a rule of thumb, if the two characters have pretty solid connections and could reasonably be made into a fun fight, then the idea itself is not spite. Examples of spite Goku vs. Evolution Goku. While I can't think of anyone who actually liked Evolution, it's pretty damn clear who wins, and it's not so much that anyone would want to see this fight, they'd just want to see the original beat the crap out of a failed Westernization. Stitch vs. Doomsday. Not necessarily because of the idea - the connection is actually pretty solid, and technically speaking it could work. But there was a time when one user made this fight because Stitch had beaten Pikachu in a previous battle, and in a rage about Stitch's victory, the user made this to purposely give Stitch a loss. Hulk vs. Freddy Fazbear. BECAUSE NOTHING'S MORE FUN THAN RELENTLESSLY BEATING THE CRAP OUT OF THE ANIMATRONICS FOR FUN, RIGHT??? Other than that, it's really difficult to find a truly spite idea, because a fight can almost always be made to look entertaining and without the intent of hurting someone with the fight. Spite can also be found in the form of one's attitude toward a character. Jokes at a character's expense run pretty rampant even throughout canon Death Battles, so those aren't quite qualifiers of spite. However, if someone constantly throws out blatant hatred of a character and has expressed hatred toward that character before, and definitely did that fight with the intent of giving that character a loss, then that qualifies as spite. Final Thoughts Spite is something that no one likes. Battles written here are written for everyone - yourself, the wiki users, and anyone who might happen to stumble upon it. At the end of the day, Death Battle is about entertainment and settling a debate. Spite matches aren't that - they're just done for the pleasure of whoever's writing, and anyone can find spite if they know what they're looking for. Unless that person similarly hates that character, then usually only the writer enjoys the spite that they write. The rest of us would rather read fights that were written with the intent of finding out who would win and why, and for entertainment purposes. You can put spite on a blog though, but just be warned that it's still spite, and that it still lacks entertainment value unless you turn it into a joke or parody. Even then, that sort of thing is getting really old, and if you want to make a parody fight entertaining, then you should try to do something original with it. Para out. *Puts on shades and drives away in a Ferrari* Category:Blog posts